In a communications system, a multinode messaging system may appear as a single system to the network while internally, it must distribute calls between its internal nodes. Such a system may employ a property called redirect. The redirect property is available in such protocols as the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). Using redirect, a call is sent to a common externally known address of the messaging system. Those calls are then redirected to the node that will actually terminate the call. Since the redirection is a central-type function, it is normally placed on a centralized element of back-end hardware.
FIG. 1 illustrates such a prior art system 100 that makes use of a redirect server to terminate a call. Redirect server 140 receives a message signal from switch 120. The switch 120 may be a telephony switch such as a private branch exchange (PBX) switch. Depending on the availability of requested resources, the redirect server 140 will pass the message signal to one of telephony access nodes (TANs) 160 via an appropriate path. The TANs 160 terminate message signaling. The redirect server 140 distributes messages for the TANs 160.
There are two main drawbacks with a system such as that illustrated in FIG. 1. The first drawback is that the redirect server, due to its centralized nature, can cause a bottleneck in cases of increased traffic. Second, if a malfunction should occur in the redirect server, the entire system could cease to function properly, so a second redundant redirect server must be provisioned for high availability systems.
Therefore, it would be desirable to have a method and system that would address the above shortcomings of the centralized redirect server.